


take me to the city of sun

by antithestral



Category: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, DC Extended Universe, DCU
Genre: ALL the pining., Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fake Marriage, Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 08:08:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21846457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antithestral/pseuds/antithestral
Summary: [ABANDONED] “Last I checked,” Superm—Clarksays, “marriage was a two-person job. Who could I marry? Who would be stupid enough to—”“Me.” Oh god oh god oh god. “You could marry me.”
Relationships: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne
Comments: 46
Kudos: 295





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> EDIT as of March 18, 2020: this work is incomplete, and has been abandoned. beware, all ye who enter.

After they touchdown on the tiny runway at Henderson Executive, Alfred disembarks first, squinting up at the desert sun. Bruce paused on the stairs, slips on a pair of Ray-Bans. 

“Well, we’re here now, sir,” Alfred calls out acerbically. “How do you intend on finding—” 

He won’t say Superman. That was a precaution they decided on when they were still loading up the luggage in Gotham. 

“—him?”

Bruce stays quiet. He has no idea. 

————

  
  
  
  
  


They book a villa at the MGM Grand, because class and good taste are for other people. 

Summers in Vegas are the quietest time of the year. It feels like the heat is somehow shimmering in past the casino walls, a desert mirage, sapping the energy clean out of the whole city. 

Bruce walks down the Strip, the empty streets, the air hot and dry, making his throat feel gritty with dust. He remembers when it used to be the Dunes, back there. Sands, and Desert Inn. He spent a lot of time in this town, twenty, thirty years ago. Used to get himself cleaned out, every time, until Alfred stepped in, one day when he was nineteen, plonked himself down on a stool right next to Bruce, and asked to be dealt in. 

Bruce remembers being sick with fear, that day, eyes wide, waiting for recrimination, but Alfred hadn’t even acknowledged Bruce, hadn’t said a word. He’d been playing hard-ways and double-sixes. 

Alfred straightened him out. 

And then he bought Bruce breakfast. And then they went home. 

Bruce knew this place once. But the city’s changed. 

————

  
  
  
  


The cameras spot him two days in, and Bruce puts on the requisite show. Finds a couple of NYFW models malingering by the Bellagio poolside, gets his face splashed in a couple of tabloids. Prompts the odd thinkpiece in HuffPost. The depravity of wealth, etcetera etcetera, a man too old to be doing the things he is, the air of desperation hanging around Bruce Wayne like a stale, unpleasant odour. 

But his heart’s not in it, and the cracks must show: the older one, the redhead, Heidi or Hildy or something Scandinavian from H, tips her head against his shoulder, leaning over the balcony railing, staring out at the narrow strip of lights that stands between them and the endless desert. 

“Why are you here?” She asks him, over the roar of the wind, the arid, soul-sucking heat, like an Arabian sirocco. 

“I’m looking for someone.”

Her eyes are blue, and sad, and huge. She touched his face delicately. She thinks he’s talking in metaphors— she thinks he’s talking about himself. It’s sweet. She’s sweet. Bruce wonders why he feels absolutely nothing for her. 

“Who are you looking for?”

Bruce smiles. The wind is loud. It’s probably safe. And he’s aching to say the words — to discover if it sounds as stupid out loud as it’s starting to in his head. “Superman,” he says. “I’m looking for Superman.”

Yeah, no. It sounds stupid as hell. 

Alfred is going to be _so_ smug about this. 

————

  
  
  
  
  


Say what you will about the MGM’s suites — they’ve got a _great_ bar. They’ve got a great…. Hm. 

Bruce glances around. The place looks like it always does. There’s folks on the floor, playing hard and deep, slots machines dinging, waitresses circulating. Maybe they look a little grimier now, maybe the bags under their eyes look deeper. 

Maybe…

“Hey,” he says, gesturing to the bartender. “Hey, bartender. What time’s it?”

The bartender, Luis, hurries over. Bruce is a generous tipper. “What’s the matter sir?” he asks gently. “You need me to top you up?” 

That’s the thing, isn’t it, about Vegas. No clocks, no windows. Time turns elastic and stretchy in these rooms, turns like taffy, sliding from one hour to the next, one day to another, a bounteous endless expanse, all filled up with glitter and jazz and— really great scotch. Bruce sips his refreshed scotch. 

“I gotta be somewhere,” he tells Luis, leaning over and making eye contact, like it’s a secret. He _does_ gotta be somewhere. Luis is probably going to sell this story, Bruce thinks muzzily. But that’s okay. Bruce Wayne getting drunk at hotel bars isn’t even a story anymore. It’s just boring. Boring boring Brucie, who can’t get his life right. Luis probably won’t even be able to sell the story if he tried. “You’re a good guy, Luis,” Bruce tells him. 

“Why thank you, Mr. Wayne.”

“What time’zit?”

“You aren’t leaving us, are you?”

“I gotta be somewhere.” The airfield. He has to go back to Henderson Executive. Alfred must have refueled the plane by now. He must be waiting. 

“Well, Mr. Wayne. No point having your plane if it won’t wait for you, that’s what I’ve always thought.” 

Bruce wonders how much he’s been saying out loud. 

“Quite a bit, sir.”

“I gotta go, Luis.”

“That’s a shame, Mr. Wayne. Will we be seeing you again soon, sir?”

Bruce grimaces. “God. I hope not.” And leaves. 

————

  
  
  
  
  


He wanders, once he’s out. It’s mid-afternoon already — Bruce is not sure how that happened, and the summer sun beats down on him, like a tangible physical thing, like an anvil from a Looney Tunes short. He takes a few wrong turns, ends up in the MGM’s massive parking lot. It’s cheaper to buy a sprawling tract of land in the desert, rather than build a whole parking structure, and send valets running off into the unshaded lot on minimum wage. 

Heat shimmers off the asphalt, making it look shiny and wet. He _should’ve_ called for the car to come around, he thinks. The keys are with the valet service, aren’t they? Even if he found the car, he wouldn’t be able to get in. Even if… The car is… 

He spots the Ferrari close to the edge of the lot. There’s… Jesus, there’s somebody _lying_ on the fucking car. A hundred and eight degrees, and he’s lying on hot metal — his skin should be covered in second degree burns for fuck’s sake.

“Hey,” he calls out. There’s sweat trickling down his back. He strips off the jacket. “Hey, pal.” He walks faster. The ground feels wobbly. It’s possible he’s drunk. “Hey, are you okay?”

The man twists, lifting up on an elbow and then peeling off the car — off, and a foot up into the air. “Hi,” says the Superman, in flannels and jeans. He looks as tired as Bruce feels. “I heard you were looking for me.”


	2. Chapter 2

Bruce’s first thought is, _I didn’t know I was_ that _drunk._

His second thought follows rapidly on the heels of the first, and is something like, _Drinking doesn’t cause hallucinations_ and then, _oh no ive been drugged_. 

“You don’t seem surprised,” Superman says. 

“Too drunk to be surprised,” Bruce tells him candidly. _Too drunk to be terrified,_ Bruce thinks to himself. Maybe getting sloshed on a weekday afternoon isn’t the worst idea he’s had all week. “You were listening to me,” he muses out loud. “How does that even work? Do you listen to all conversations everywhere, all the time?”

Superman pauses for a second, like he’s trying to figure out what Bruce is talking about. “No,” he says. “Are you nuts? I’d kill myself in a week. No, your model friend grabbed breakfast at the same place I was getting my coffee. I overheard her the regular way. She mentioned your car too.”

“And there’s only one Ferrari in the MGM lot.”

“Two, but the other one’s from ‘89, and you’re…”

“All about the flash. Yeah. Good deducing.”

Superman shrugs. “I googled you,” he replies. “So why were you looking for me?”

 _To decide if you need killing,_ Bruce thinks. “I need food,” he says instead, self-preservational instincts well and alive despite the alcohol. 

“You want me to bring you take out?” Superman asks sardonically, and honestly, with the way his head feels, Bruce could do without the attitude right now. 

“I need solid food,” he goes on, as if uninterrupted. “Carbs. Something to soak up…”

“All the booze?” Superman has folded his arms over his chest now. He’s moved from drifting above the car to drifting above the asphalt directly in front of Bruce, who notes gleefully that Superman might actually be… shorter than him. 

“Watch it, kid,” he mutters at Superman. “Where’d you get the coffee?”

“Nearby. Little 50s themed diner.”

“Any good?”

“Good enough.”

“Great. We’re walking.”

—————

  
  
  
  
  
  


Bruce is halfway through his shortstack when the question occurs to him. “Did you steal that?” he asks Superman, staring at the truly horrific plaid he’s wearing. 

Superman glances down at himself and then scowls at Bruce. “No!” he snaps. “God, what _is_ it with you people.”

“‘You people’?” Bruce inquires mildly. 

“East Coasters!”

There’s no reasonable response to that, so Bruce takes another sip of his surprisingly palatable coffee. “I beg your pardon?”

“Seriously! The elitism inherent in— There’s nothing wrong with liking plaid!”

Bruce doesn’t choke on his coffee — but it’s a near thing. “I don’t have a problem with plaid.”

“You don’t?” Superman demands suspiciously. 

“If you’re a lesbian,” Bruce continues. “Or a lumberjack.” He pauses. “Oh god, you’re not a lumberjack, are you?”

“Global warming doesn’t need to be _helped along.”_

“How kind of you.” Another bite of pancakes, soaked in butter and syrup. “So If you didn’t steal the clothes…”

“They’re _my_ clothes!”

Which means Superman has a wardrobe. And a flat, to keep the wardrobe? And he pays… rent? Good god, does he have a _job?_

“I didn’t want to presume,” Bruce continues blithely. “It was entirely possible the blue suit was… not merely a suit.”

“You thought,” Superman pauses, apparently in horror, “you thought I was _blue?”_

“Piebald.” Bruce shrugs. “If horses can do it.”

Another pause. “You thought I was flying around _naked?!_ ”

So. Superman has the same societal mores as humans when it comes to being clothed in public. And a derision towards the coastal elite that seems bizarrely… Midwestern, especially in conjunction with that accent. 

And he has a job. Possibly. 

“How are you boys doing?” the waitress asks, refilling their coffee mugs. “Need anything?”

“Pie, I think,” Bruce says. “For him.” He glances at Superman. “You _do_ eat?”

“Yes.” Superman sighs. “I eat.”

“Oooo-kay,” their waitress says, apparently puzzled. Well, bully for her. Bruce left puzzled behind sixty miles ago. He’d loved to be plain old puzzled again. “I got pecan, peach and strawberry-rhubarb. I’d go with the pecan, though. Just got it out the oven this morning.”

Bruce flashes her his nicest smile, and she might have fifteen years on him, but she flushes a little anyway. _Still got it, Wayne._ “Sounds great, sweetheart. Make it two.”

Superman’s watching him when he turns back to his plate. “What?” Bruce asks. 

“You’re good at that.”

“At?”

“Making strangers feel… special. Charmed.”

Bruce snorts. “It’s not hard.”

“I meet loads of A-listers on the job. Most of them don’t bother. You do.”

“Don’t start handing out halos now, son. You don’t know jack shit about me.” A beat. “What’s the job, then?”

Superman grins. “Oh, very nice. Very smooth, Mr. Wayne.” He looks away. “I’m a news reporter.”

He stops, mid-chew. A reporter. And he’d been worried about _Luis. Luis._ And he’s been talking to a _reporter_ all morning. There’s no help for it. 

Bruce bursts out laughing. 

—————

  
  
  
  
  
  


They walk past a man reading the Las Vegas Sun. The front page has the same blurb below the fold nearly every American paper has been carrying all week - ‘ _DHS Increases Pressure on House to Declare Superman’s presence on US Soil Illegal.’_

Bruce can feel Superman’s shoulders hunch inwards. “I’m sorry,” he says, the words feeling bizarre and foreign in his mouth. 

He closes his eyes. Cognitive biases are a far greater danger to an objective grasp of reality than even a straightforward lie. And he’s falling prey to one right now. An old Princeton girlfriend had called it the Tolkien bias, once. 

Good is beautiful, evil is ugly, and Gollum’s there too, to play the exception that proves the rule. It’s why pop stars are always at least a California seven. It’s why politicians hire image consultants — it’s why the President wears makeup. Superman is beautiful; therefore Superman is good. Ipso facto. 

The physical manifestation of Freudian nightmares shrugs beside him, but his shoulders look a little less burdened, and Bruce hates himself a little for feeling better. He pushes open the door, and they step out into the desert heat. 

“Dad told me this could happen. He _told_ me that this might happen. That people would, wouldn’t trust me— wouldn’t see me as anything other than a—” He shakes his head, as if impatient with himself. “Ma never believed him; I don’t think I did either.” He laughs, but it’s a dry, hollow sound, paper-thin. “Stupid, huh?”

“I thought… I thought you were the only one.”

“Hm?”

“The only one of your— Your people. The man on the ship, he said…”

“Oh,” Superman says. He sounds a little struck. Surely he didn’t think Bruce doesn’t know about that. _Everyone_ knows about that. “Oh no,” Superman goes on. “I don’t mean my birth parents. I mean the— the couple who took me in.”

“Who… took you in?”

Superman smiles faintly at him. “Humans, Mr. Wayne.”

 _Humans._ “And your… birth parents?”

“Dead. Died on Krypton. I never knew them.”

“Oh. I’m…” _sorry,_ he tries to say, but the words keep sticking in his throat.

“Don’t be,” Superman says, as if he can hear the words anyway. It’s been that kind of day. “I never really knew them. My adopted parents - they raised me. They’re the only… I’m their son, really.” And he shrugs. Like it’s that simple.

Like it’s that…

“Should you be telling me these things?” Bruce asks. 

“Who cares,” Superman says, caustic and a little angry. 

Bruce stares at him. “Are _you_ drunk?”

Superman laughs. Christ, but he’s beautiful. Bruce feels sick. 

“Can’t get drunk,” he says, but that smile lingers on his face, warm, half-hidden, his face averted to the ground. Bruce wants to turn him around, wants to ask him to look up, wants to — wants —

He wants dangerous things. 

“What about,” Bruce tips his chin back towards the diner, “all that coffee?”

“I like the taste.”

“After six packets of sugar, I’m not sure it’s the taste of _coffee_ you like, son.”

Superman looks up at him. His eyes are unbearable, too blue, too visceral in all that heat, and abruce can feel the way his shirt is sticking to his back, the old ache in his knee, the prickle of stubble, the weird aftertaste in his mouth, the fifty thousand odd things that make him so painfully human. 

This— this creature, with his too-beautiful smiles, and his soft voice, and his quiet, stunning eyes — he could kill Bruce fifty thousand odd ways. 

His heart thumps anyway. 

“Clark,” says the creature, and Bruce stops breathing. “You should call me Clark.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is for [Fluffypanda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fluffypanda/pseuds/Fluffypanda), who left an incredibly lovely comment at the end of chapter 2 — and for whom i went scrounging through my google docs to unearth this: the last thing i ever wrote for this fic. thank you; and i'm sorry if it disappoints.

“Clark,” Bruce repeats. His throat feels thick, too filled with sweetness. 

“Yeah.”

“What will you do? If Homeland Security does get its way, and declare you an illegal, ah, an undocumented immigrant? There’ll still be cats up trees, won’t there?”

“I’ll… do it quieter, I guess. I don’t know.”

“You won’t leave?”

“Oh, I’ll leave,” _Clark_ laughs, soft and hurting, and Bruce— Bruce swallows hard. “I’ll go if they want me to go. But…”

“You should stay.”

“I should, huh?”

“You could get married.”

“Hm?”

“It would complicate things, wouldn’t it? Purely on a legal basis. If you could say you were married to an American citizen—”

“I’m not going to _lie—”_

“Get _actually_ married,” Bruce snaps impatiently. “And then you could say it _honestly_ — it would— I don’t know.” Bruce sits down on a bench. His head is— doing something. Spinning. 

No it’s not. He just wishes it was. He wishes he was still drunk. Intoxication would be a good, solid excuse for the words slipping out of his mouth — but they’re measured. Each word is reasoned, logical, a step in a predetermined direction. He’s hurtling toward a conclusion he doesn’t want to look at. He should stop talking now now _now—_

“Last I checked,” Superm— _Clark_ is saying, “marriage was a two-person job. Who could _I_ marry? Who would be stupid enough to—”

“Me.” Oh god oh god oh god. “You could marry me.”

————

  
  
  
  
  
  


They get it done. 

A severely hungover Elvis marries them in a dinky, falling-apart little chapel they find two blocks down from the diner. Their witnesses are a couple of tired looking twenty-somethings, dressed in cutoffs and baggy t-shirts, body glitter making their legs look shiny and holographic. 

Bruce hands over eighty-five dollars and his ID card in the beginning, and accepts a marriage certificate and a husband at the end. They say their ‘I do’s at the appropriate moment, and when Elvis slurs, “You boys c’n kiss now if y’like,” Bruce leans forward and kisses Clark brusquely on the corner of his stunned mouth. 

He dusts some imaginary lint off of Clark’s shoulder, as if to say, _‘There. Done,’_ and doesn’t, by some impossible grace, stop to marvel at the firm rise of muscle beneath his palm. 

“Anyone ever tell you you look a whole lot like Bruce Wayne?” one of the witnesses asks him afterwards, blinking slowly up at him. 

“All the time,” he replies easily, and walks out into the sun.

————

  
  
  
  
  
  


When they finally get out of the cab at Henderson Executive, Bruce is fully six hours late, and Alfred, who is standing at the gate, is giving him the stink-eye. 

“Alfred.”

“Oh good, I was just about to send our search parties.”

“Yeah.”

“And call the lawyers.”

“Oh god,” Bruce sighs. 

Alfred’s on a roll though. “Maybe start planning some flower arrangements, for the funeral.”

“I’m _late,_ I didn’t _die.”_

“Yes, well.” He shrugs. “As the philosopher Jagger once said, you can’t always get what you wan— Oh hello,” he adds, without even blinking, when Clark climbs out of the cab. “I wasn’t aware we had guests.”

“Hi,” Clark says, with a sheepish little wave. “I’m Clark. Sorry, I should’ve probably— I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. Or make Bruce late.”

“Oh, never fear, Master Clark. Sir is capable of ludicrous unpunctuality, _entirely_ without help.”

Clark pauses. And then snickers. 

Alfred looks tremendously pleased. 

“Alfred,” Bruce mutters, while the cabbie drives away. 

“Six _hours._ ”

Clark’s jaw drops. “You made him wait _six hours?!_ ”

“He does receive a salary, I’m not a _slavedriver.”_

Alfred coughs something that sounds suspiciously like _‘Yeah, right,’_ not that he'd admit it upon pain of death, even.But Clark is glaring at him and snapping, “Okay, but that’s—rude!”

“Thank you,” Bruce snaps. “It’s nice to see how this relationship is going to function. Both of you ganging up on me, that makes me feel all kinds of enthusiastic about the future.”

“Relationship,” Alfred repeats delicately, and Bruce plasters on his biggest, fakest smile, and turns to Alfred and says, saccharine-sweet, “Didn’t I mention? We just got married. Alfred, meet Superman.”

There’s a long and heavy pause, and then Clark’s yelling “BRUCE!” at the same time Alfred smacks a hand against his forehead and sighs for like a million years.

————

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! if you liked this, hit kudos <3  
> find me on tumblr @pasdecoeur.


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